


By My Hands

by Capella



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Genre: Bao-Dur keeps a journal, M/M, also Bao-Dur's crush on the Exile is not at all subtle, the Mandalorion Wars really fucked everybody up, there's a lot of self-loathing and depression in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 22:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8915206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capella/pseuds/Capella
Summary: I wish I’d never seen the data. Seen what Malachor has become. My weapon was more effective than I’d ever dreamed. It left a broken, twisted shell of a planet. A warped ring of debris surrounds it. Dozens of our ships were caught in the blast. Thousands of our own men, dead. That’s what happened to the Solemn Oath. What happened to me.

  The war is over.

  I am not proud.
 These three things are true:* The Mass Shadow Generator ended the war.* Bao-Dur built the Mass Shadow Generator.* Bao-Dur hates himself for it.





	1. War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [forgetcanon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetcanon/gifts).



> [forgetcanon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetcanon/pseuds/forgetcanon) wrote a beautiful prompt about Bao-Dur and the way he's got so much going on under the surface, how he struggles with his past and his chance for redemption, and how he effortlessly falls back into saving the galaxy. It was a magical prompt, and I'm so delighted to have had a chance to write this fic.

He hated the Mandalorians. The way they tore across the galaxy and blasted planets and people, leaving devastation in their wake, like the plains-locusts of Ord Radema. Only Bao-Dur found the locusts far more forgivable. They were animals, not knowing what they did; they acted on impulses coded into them by biology, and they served a vital role in the ecosphere. In a few years, new life sprung up in the plains the locusts swept clean. In contrast, the Mandalorians fought because their culture demanded it. They knew what they were doing, and they reveled in it anyway. Nothing flourished where they had been, except the fruits of pain and suffering and the flowers of sorrow. Worse than animals, he’d thought at the time, and he still believed it of them even now.

That hatred had given him the desire to join up with the War. At the time, he’d told (his surviving) family and friends that he’d joined because he needed to stop them from hurting any more people. In truth, his motives had been far less pure. He’d wanted to strike back against the Mandalorians. To make them feel the same pain they inflicted on other people, other worlds. So he’d exulted in every Republic victory, every planet reclaimed from their terror, every huge blow to their war machine. Every Mandalorian dead was a good thing, another Mandalorian who would never cause more death and destruction. 

The war hadn’t been quickly or easily won, though. The Republic had been on the defensive, its counterattacks the weak swings of an unprepared boxer, and its successes limited and often overridden within weeks. The intervention of the rebel Jedi faction, led by Revan, had made it progress much better, as she called more soldiers and more ships to her side, swelling the ranks of the warriors and bringing in Jedi to organize and coordinate. They were more efficient fighters. And yet there were still agonizing months where the war was back to fighting in the trenches, like on Dxun. 

The Jedi generals sat at tables in the briefing rooms, discussing the broader strategy of the War as dejarik, like it was just a bunch of moving game-pieces across a giant board. He’d overheard them one day when he was repairing a power system relay in the briefing room next door. They’d been unable to start the noise isolation systems because of the conduit damage. And for whatever reason, they’d kept meeting there rather than moving to a different room. And so he overheard the dispassionate way the Jedi talked about reassigning the fourth division to Dxun, knowing it would fall to the Mandalorians in the end, but hoping to buy a few more weeks to reinforce the depot at Ord Mantell so the supply lines could stay up. The Jedi in the room eventually agreed on the decision - all but one. But he was overruled.

Bao-Dur walked away from that meeting feeling unsettled. The Jedi were heroes of the Republic, champions of peace and order and justice. While many sat back idly, watching, the Jedi who had come to join the Army and Navy had done so in order to help save the Republic. He’d imagined they’d done so out of compassion, because they wanted to save lives. Hearing them talk about throwing them away so coldly sat in his stomach like he’d swallowed a lump of agrinium.

He couldn’t think like that about other people. As a child, he’d never had a taste for those games, couldn’t abstract his fellow soldiers to pieces to be sent somewhere to die to buy a few more turns, couldn’t bring himself to sacrifice one planet to save a dozen more. When he played, he always tried to protect everything he started out with. And whenever he did that, he lost horribly. So he stopped playing.

The decisions of fighting the War were complicated and messy and hard to think about. He found himself grateful he was an engineer, and not one of the higher-ranked officers whose job it was to weigh in on those decisions, to make the choices of who would live and die according to the grand plan.

It was nice being down in the Engineering Division. It was systematized and made sense. He loved to look at tiny components and painstakingly put them together, assembling wires into circuits, and circuits into a sub-system, and a sub-system into a system, until eventually it all became a larger piece that worked. His brain worked in systems, puzzles something to be taken apart, analyzed, and slotted back together. Troubleshooting was tweaking all of the variables until the solution was presented. It was simple and clean. 

There needed to be a decisive way to win the War. The generals and admirals and Jedi, with their talk of the Republic forces as dejarik pieces, couldn’t find it. But maybe if you looked at it as an engineering problem...

So he’d started looking for an engineering solution. At first it was a small puzzle to occupy himself with in his spare time, thought experiments he could turn over in his mind during the down period between evening meal and sleep. And then, as the war dragged on and the Mandalorians were still not stopped, it began to consume him. He thought of it obsessively as he showered, as he ate, as he tried to fall asleep at night. 

The solution came to him, late one night in a corner of the mess. Pieces of technical information that he’d had for months, that had seemed irrelevant to his direct assignments, but had been interesting enough to stick into his brain. Here was a hypothetical shield design that anchored in mass shadows but the numbers said he couldn’t get to work on anything smaller than a decent-sized moon; there was a concept of amplifying gravitic attraction that he’d wished could be reversed to repel projectiles instead; a dozen discarded research concepts that, when you put it together…

He didn’t sleep for two days while he finished the concept. When it was done, he looked at it, found it elegant in its design. Then he ran it through the simulators, and watched what it did to the simulated planet.

Nothing on the surface would survive. Anything in the inner system would be sucked into it. A perfect trap from which there was no escaping. A perfect weapon to strike a single, decisive blow. To destroy everything on the planet - to kill all of the troops that would be there -

It was an elegant solution, and a horrible creation.

The longer he looked at it, the more certain he knew it was the answer to the hatred burning in his heart, to his bitter need to end the Mandalorians. This was the way to end the war. To stop the Mandalorian threat once and for all. To prevent them from overrunning the galaxy like plains-locusts. It was the right thing to do.

He knew if he submitted the designs up the normal chain, it would get ignored. But perhaps if he showed it to someone who could make sure it was seen...who would know its potential. He thought of the meeting weeks ago where he’d overheard the Jedi discussing allocating their forces, thought of the one who’d protested throwing lives away to prolong the war. That Jedi wanted it ended quickly. Maybe he would see how useful this was.

Bao-Dur squared his shoulders, picked up the datapad, and set off to violate protocol and speak with a Jedi.


	2. Interlude: Vows

**Recovered from Bao-Dur’s Personal Log, 12-15-32493**

 

_They say we won. That we activated the Mass Shadow Generator. Defeated the Mandalorians. That the war is over._

_I don’t remember any of it. The med-techs assure me that’s normal. They say the bridge was in chaos after we activated it. That the ship was blasted by shockwaves. That the level of damage I sustained induced enough shock to block it out. They say I may never remember. Or that it may come back over time._

_Etalys was kind enough to bring me telemetry data, so I could see for myself how the Generator had worked. She was babbling about how successful I was. Sure I’d want to see what I’d done. Be proud of how I saved the Republic by building this._

_I wish I’d never seen the data. Seen what Malachor has become. My weapon was more effective than I’d ever dreamed. It left a broken, twisted shell of a planet. A warped ring of debris surrounds it. Dozens of our ships were caught in the blast. Thousands of our own men, dead. That’s what happened to the Solemn Oath. What happened to me._

_The war is over._

_I am not proud._

~*~

He expected the guilt he felt over the Republic personnel who had died at Malachor. He’d killed hundreds of his own people. Fellow soldiers, who had wanted to stop the Mandalorians, same as him. The therapist tried to tell him that it wasn’t so bad - they were people who had signed up to fight, who had known they could die and who’d chosen to go anyway.

Bao-Dur didn’t believe that argument. He knew that they’d prepared themselves to die at the hands of the Mandalorians. That was understandable to prepare for. But to die at the hands of one of their own? It was betrayal. It was unforgivable.

The second, unexpected waves of guilt came weeks later.He’d been so caught up in the Republic casualties, imagining what it must have felt like on the ground and on the closer ships. He’d only thought about the opposing side in the context of winning. He’d never stopped to consider the Mandalorians as people who were also suffering and dying. After all, they were the enemy, they didn’t count.

His mind couldn’t shake the image of the telemetry from Malachor. It was shattered into pieces, the remaining part of the surface barren and warped by storms and anomalies. 

The Mandalorians might have left death and destruction on every planet they touched, but they’d never broken a planet like this. They were people-killers, not planet-killers. 

If he hated them for what they’d done, how could he live with what he’d done? He was no better than they.

 _Never again will I harm,_ he vowed. 

 

~*~

 

**Recovered from Bao-Dur’s Personal Log, 1-02-32493**

_Malachor V haunts my mind. Shattered. Barren. A destruction far beyond that the Mandalorians themselves had wrought on any planet they’d torched. By my hands, this hell exists._

_I must atone._


	3. Telos

It felt like there was a storm forever raging within him, a tempest of hatred and anger and guilt and a deep well of self-loathing. It had started as just hatred of the Mandalorians, uncomplicated in its simplicity. There were so many more targets to hate, now.

The Mandalorians, for starting the war.

Himself, for designing the generator.

Revan, for approving the plan.

Himself, for pressing the button.

_You can’t blame yourself twice_ , his therapist’s voice said in his head. He ignored it, like he tried to ignore all his ghosts. That one was the easiest to get past, because it was so recent. The older ghosts were harder to ignore.

Losing his arm hadn’t been enough penance for the deaths he caused. Maybe if he’d died with the weapon, consumed by the same fires he’d sent out, dying beside the other soldiers… It wouldn’t have been enough to make up for what he’d done.

He’d thought about suicide a lot those first few months. The med-techs had initially staved it off by engaging him in planning the reconstruction of his arm. The first options they’d given him were appalling, so he’d started designing his own. That distraction kept him going when the tough rounds of physical therapy and the mandatory counseling made him want to never get out of bed. Once it was designed, he had to wait for manufacture, and then for it to be installed. By the time he’d spent a month with it on, the ideations had mostly passed.

Not wanting to die didn’t mean having anything to live for. His therapist thought that was part of his problem, and she had made some suggestions to him that sounded like the standard ones you made to people with war-based trauma; find a new job, get a hobby, find something that gets you working past it… Nothing concrete that he could start analyzing as a possibility, or specific to his situation as not just another shell-shocked veteran, but the planet-ender. 

He’d eventually gone back to Iridonia, trying to lose himself in the extended clan-family. When he’d been around too many people, he’d changed tracks to become an obscure starship mechanic in a remote outpost.

Until he’d seen the news about what the Republic wanted to do for Telos. To restore a world devastated by the war. (Technically, by the second war, the one that was a continuation brought on by those who returned under Revan and Malak’s command. As if he hadn’t had enough reasons to hate them both - bad enough that Revan had set the trap at Malachor, destroying the Mandalorian opposition - worse that she’d damned a bunch of their own men with it - and worst that she was coming back to kill yet more soldiers.) 

His cousin Zai-Le had encouraged him to sign up for it. But in truth, he hadn’t needed too much persuading. Since Telos was so badly damaged, it made sense to use it as a testing bed. And they’d need trained engineers...and his speciality was on the list they were looking for.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to create life where there’s none?” Zai-Le had said, looking wistful. He was in his third year of study as a soil scientist, and Bao-Dur could tell that the younger man was hoping to apply when he was done with school.

Bao-Dur’s first thought was about how it was hard to think about creating life when you carried the blood of thousands staining your hands. But he tried not to talk about those weighty subjects with the youth. They hadn’t been there, they wouldn’t understand.

“It would,” was all he said, lapsing into a comfortable silence.

He kept thinking about it overnight, which turned into over the next few days, until finally he sent in an application. He was surprised when he was called back within a month, but Zai-Le was confident and excited for him. Some of that rubbed off.

The interviews went well. His technical qualifications exceeded that of their other candidates. When asked why he wanted the job, he said that he wanted to see the damage of the war repaired - didn’t everyone? And the interviewers, knowing he was a veteran, seemed to appreciate that on face value.

He’d been accepted to work with the Restoration Project and told he could start next week. On the way out, one of the human men interviewing him had made a comment about his calm temperament and how that would be an asset in the work ahead. Bao-Dur suspected he wasn’t meant to have heard that, but Zabrak hearing was keen. Inwardly, he had laughed.

_Calm?_ The human knew nothing about him. He’d been in turmoil the entire time, afraid that they’d bring up Malachor V.  Even though some of what he was considering for shield technology was related to that of the accursed project, he didn’t want them deciding that his appointment would look bad from a political point of view.) But he’d masked it well enough to get the job, and that was what mattered.

As he took the shuttle up to the newly-constructed Citadel Station, Bao-Dur felt a cautious optimism. It was a fresh planet, a fresh career. It was a chance to leave his anger behind. To create new life, and atone for old sins.


	4. Interlude: Loyalty

**Recovered from Bao-Dur’s Personal Log, 02-05-32502**

 

_Today I saw the General again, for the first time in 9 years. It could have been 90 and I’d still know him._

_I’d forgotten how overwhelming staring at him could be. On the_ Solemn Oath _I remember thinking of him like the sun - he radiated a humanity, warmth, and compassion that none of the other Jedi ever evinced, and you can’t help but turn your face to him whenever you’re in the same room. He was luminous in a way I never imagined a person could be. Now I see him as the sun in eclipse, its light masked out by the body occluding it. He says he is not what he was, but he still is - can he not see?_

_We all did a little forgetting, I told him earlier. Mine was running away from what I’d done. Looks like his was, too. But he says now there is a threat that must be stopped. He says he wants to save the Republic. To see justice done. And what Jedi are left to stand up for the Republic? They either hid away in their temples or went to war and collapsed in the aftermath._

_He burns brightly with a cause. Just as he did before._

_This Restoration project has been my cause since it began, my chance to atone for the past. I hated Czerka for taking even this refuge away from me. If he’s stopped Czerka’s encroachment, as he says, then I can set aside violence. Return to the Ithorians. Continue healing this world._

_I swore off fighting, after Malachor. I didn’t want to be responsible for more bloodshed. Then Czerka happened, and I took up arms to stop them. It was so easy to fall back into violence - so easy to sabotage what they did and claim it justified, that I was stopping a greater threat._

_I have not changed at all._

_I followed my anger at the Mandalorians, and it resulted in Malachor. I followed my anger at Czerka, and it resulted in violence against them. Every time I follow my heart, I cause death._

_And when I follow others?_

_I trust the General to make the right calls. I believe him when he says there is a threat, and that he will fight it. I know he will stand alone if he must. But he deserves better than that._

_I will follow now, as I did then._


	5. Argument

Everyone on the ship had fallen into a routine for the hyperspace days. The General would canvass the ship, stopping to talk with every member of the rag-tag group they’d amassed. Sometimes he spent long hours in with Kreia, other times he stalked out of her quarters rapidly. His time with Atton usually involved food and pazaak. As more people arrived, his interaction habits shifted to encompass them, and his routine grew in duration. He even took time to speak with the droids, which wasn’t something most people did. It showed a level of concern for all life, not just the obvious organic kind.

(Remote approved of it, as well. They saw that the General gave the same attention to Remote as he did to Kreia.)

Bao-Dur had noticed that the General always saved visiting him for last. He’d come into the garage and settle himself down on the floor, out of the way. At first he’d snapped to whenever the Jedi entered the room - force of habit, of a year and a half following this man into the depths of the War and every one of the Corellian Hells - but now he knew he could wait to acknowledge the other man until he could spare his concentration.

Sometimes, the human wanted to talk, and it would range from profound discussion about their past to light chatter about the rest of the ship’s personnel. Other times, he would come in and meditate in the corner, saying nothing but still letting his presence suffuse the room. Bao-Dur found his presence to be relaxing, and found his work benefited from the visit. He often wondered if the General derived any pleasure from sitting in with Bao-Dur in return, or if his was just the quietest mind on the ship. Given who the other inhabitants were, he often suspected the latter.

When the emitter was done, he set it down “How are you today, General?” he asked.

“Unsettled,” the General responded. “I was speaking with the Handmaiden earlier.”

“What did she have to say?” Bao-Dur asked. 

He’d noticed that the General always came out of conversations with Handmaiden subdued. His suspicion was that it had something to do with the fact that the Handmaiden had such close ties to Atris, and since the General had such complicated feelings about Atris, it stood to reason that those would come to the forefront every time they interacted.

He also tried not to notice the times the General slipped out of her room stripped down to his boxers. Sparring, they said it was; mastering Echani techniques of unarmed combat to be more dangerous.  His mind kept picturing her and him sparring, flesh on flesh - and then he shied away from thinking about why the idea consumed him in irritation and discomfort.

“She said that Atris thought highly of you, and believed that you held the key to save Telos.”

Of all the things that he expected to hear said about himself, praise for his technical talents wasn’t one. “Excuse me?” He was sure he’d misheard.

“She also told me I should value what I have in you, to know what it means that one with your talents would follow me,” the human said. “She also said that we carry similar wounds. A world upon his shoulders is how she put it, I believe.”

“Does she spend a lot of time considering other people’s burdens?” That came out more acerbically than he’d meant.

“The Echani philosophy she’s teaching me says that how a person walks shows what they carry. She sees Malachor on me. Something she could have learned about from Atris even before the trial video. But you? How would she know that?”

Bao-Dur lifted his organic shoulder in a half-shrug. “More of Atris’ files?”

“It’s possible.” The General paused and frowned. “If you want me to tell her to stop analyzing you…”

There was no good reason for him to feel like his privacy was invaded. Everyone in the ship was trying to learn about the others. Some had much more powerful ways of observation than others did. But the General spent so much time with the Handmaiden… And that she was observing him so closely… He wondered if she saw anything else in him.

“It’s fine.” To change the subject, he asked, “Was that all she said?”

“It was all that mattered. But it got me thinking.” 

The General stopped talking, lifted a hand to play with his hair. Bao-Dur knew the human did that in times of stress. He wanted to know what the other man was thinking, but he refrained from pushing. The air felt strangely weighty, like the moments on Iridonia before the lightning storms - when the air was heavy with moisture and charge and waiting for the right spark to start it off - and a sense of foreboding coiled in his stomach.

“What do you think of me, Bao-Dur?”

That wasn’t the question he expected. It was phrased so openly that it invited many a possible answer, and so neutrally that he had no way of knowing what the other man was expecting as an answer.

Better to start simple, with the easy truths. “I think that you are my General, committed to preserving the Republic.”

“A preserver, is that what you think?” The General laughed, and there was bitterness in the sound.

It triggered a surge of irritation in the Zabrak. “Is there something else you think I should see you as?”

“I’m no longer a General, or even a Jedi. Both ranks were stripped from me.”

“So was your lightsaber, and you had me rebuild it,” Bao-Dur pointed out. “What people say you are, and what you are, are two different things. I know what I see.”

The human was silent a few moments. “I asked the wrong question. I apologize.”

“What do you want to know, then?” Bao-Dur stepped away from the workbench and settled onto the floor. If this was going to be a long conversation - and one that was potentially painful - he might as well be more comfortable.

“I should have asked why you follow me. Why you’re still here on this crazy quest to stop the Sith, instead of safely back at Telos, working on the Restoration like you’d hoped.”

“Following you felt like the right thing to do, General. I joined the Restoration Project to make a difference. To heal, instead of harm. And then you crashed into my life, ready to save the galaxy again. Following you means I can make a difference in the galaxy, not just on one world.”

The General looked down at the floor of the bay, and wouldn’t meet Bao-Dur’s eyes. “You don’t resent me for pulling you away?”

He could continue to hedge, to say only the most obvious things and not reveal the truth. But again the sense in the air hung over him, convincing him to bare the truth he’d been thinking about. The General had pushed, and now he would know. Bao-Dur would just have to hope that they would still speak after this.

“I’m glad to be back by your side. Being near you has an effect on me, General. I never noticed it years ago.”

Not entirely true. He’d noticed some of it - the way he always felt a sense of warmth and well-being by him, the way he always knew where he was in the room, like a flower turning to the sun. And yet it was so much more pronounced now, as though sound-dampening headphones had been taken off - or as if he’d become more sensitized to the other man.

“What kind of effect?” the General asked.

“I think my mind was too occupied then. I feel… calm. More in control. The anger is still there, but I can feel it drifting away. The last years of my life have been defined by it - the Mandalorians, Czerka, and Revan. And above all else, myself, for Malachor.” 

He hadn’t consciously realized it before, but as he spoke he knew it to be true. No longer was the rage something he continually had to keep a lid on. It was becoming a background note, muting itself and subsiding. 

The General hesitated before his next words, his voice shaking. “What about me, for giving the order?”

The Zabrak shook his head, the denial immediately springing to his lips. “Never, General. It had to be done.” 

“Why do you blame Revan and yourself, but not me?”

“Revan came up with the plan to massacre the Mandalorians and our men. You gave the order at her command. And it was my hands that destroyed the Mandalorians. I cannot be forgiven for that.” He paused, before adding, “If there had been no bomb then the order never could have been given.”

“Had you not, millions of innocents in the Republic would have been killed. The war would have dragged out. You saved those people.”

It was tempting to accept that rationale - saying _I did it for the greater good_ allowed one to pass responsibility for their actions off elsewhere, as though one mantra could provide all absolution for their sins. Only _I was just following orders_ had been more used to justify evil. “Even though I did it out of hatred of the Mandalorians?”

The General shook his head so vigorously that his long black hair fell into his eyes. “You did it to save us.”

Bao-Dur felt a surge of aggravation. The peace he usually felt around the General was fading away, the anger resurgent. “That might be your truth, but I don’t want to see it that way. I can’t just ignore the blood on my hands.”

“My truth?” the General asked.

“Is that what you truly believe about the activation of the Mass Shadow Generator? That it doesn’t matter why it was built, or what reason it was activated, as long as it served to save people?” he snapped, looking down at his hands. One flesh, one metal, different in appearance - both stained with the blood of those who died at Malachor.

He was barely aware of what he was going to say next before it came out. “Are you trying to comfort me to save me from my own guilt? Or is telling me that I shouldn’t have it your way of expiating your own?”

Bao-Dur heard a shocked intake of breath. He tensed himself for the response. But nothing came. He looked up from the deck in time to see the General push himself up and walk out the door of the cargo hold.

As soon as the General was out of the room, the anger became less immediate. The storm-heaviness in the air faded. Free of both presences, the Zabrak dragged in a shuddering breath.

_Dweet-dwoo. Druuuu,_ Remote commented, bobbing in the corner.

Bao-Dur had forgotten Remote was witnessing the exchange. “I know. I was hard on him.”

_Dwee,_ Remote agreed.

“It was a fair question to ask,” he insisted, even as remorse twinged in his chest. “It matters if he’s trying to convince me because he truly thinks I’m blameless, or if he’s trying to convince me because he needs to convince himself that we did the right thing.”

He couldn’t handle thinking anymore, so he decided to go to bed. He’d slept in a hammock here enough that no one would be surprised if he was here instead of the men’s barracks.

Bao-Dur’s dreams that night were restless and unsettling, full of exploding bridges, the shattered surface of Malachor, and a sound that ranged between an echo and a scream. And he sensed his General there too, his presence wavering between an overbearing sun and a tiny flickering candle, drowning in a crushing sense of guilt and despair.


	6. Resolution

It was two days before they interacted again. The General preferred to be up early and Bao-Dur up late, but they’d been shifting their schedules to maximize time together since just after Telos. It was easier than expected to walk the corridors of the _Ebon Hawk_ to get food or parts without running into him. 

He wondered if the General was using the Force to sense where he was/would be and then avoid him, and couldn’t decide if the idea of the other man reading his Force presence enough to tell where he would be was welcome or horrifying. He was getting feelings himself, a subtle nudging that had him back to the cargo hold and starting to work on another set of energy shields just before the General walked past talking to Atton. To be in the engine room just before the General walked past on his way from the Handmaiden’s training area, so that he would hear them pass by but not have to see them. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but the fact that it had happened twice unsettled him.

By the end of the second day, though, enough was enough. The anger was gone and the remorse was strong. When it was late enough in the evening that it was the next day - when everyone else was surely asleep or meditating - Bao-Dur resolved that it was time to do something. Before everyone else on the ship began to pry into the strained awkwardness. He stood at the workbench, closing his eyes and breathing in and breathing out as he tried to clear his mind and banish the unfortunate emotions. He wanted to see the General with a clear mind and heart.

When he felt sufficiently centered, he moved towards the door - which slid open to reveal the General, hand raised to knock.

“You came,” he said, rattled by the sudden appearance of the man he’d been thinking about.

“You called,” the General said. “May I?”

Bao-Dur stepped back so the other man could come in. “Of course. Sit down.” 

He settled back onto the floor, unsure if his legs would be able to hold him for the full conversation. Then he had a sudden flash of concern about what the other man had just said. “When you say I called…”

“I knew you wanted to see me and was drawn here. Not in a way the other Force-sensitives could hear, if you were wondering,” the General said.

“I would prefer to not have Kreia walk in on me,” the Zabrak said dryly.

“She can’t hear you, you know. Told me your thoughts were black and inscrutable, like an animal’s,” the human offered.

“Did she?” That was offensive - and somehow unsurprising.

“She calls you the alien, and not by name.”

“I wasn’t aware you two discussed me in detail.” There was a prickle he didn’t understand in his belly at the thought. He didn’t like Kreia, and he didn’t like having those negative thoughts confirmed.

“After our conversation the other night, I needed to meditate. Kreia sensed my turmoil. She came to take me to task about my feelings affecting my mission, and asked me about Malachor. She challenged me to see if I regretted my decisions or not. Just like Atris did, at her Academy. Just like the Handmaiden did.

“Everyone wants to know if I still think I did the right thing by going to war. By giving the order at Malachor. As though they think I haven’t spent the last nine years considering it,” he said with a snort.

“Do they seek to test your convictions, or see if you have a weakness?”

“I think Kreia wanted to see if I would accept responsibility, or if I would dodge it by blaming Revan.”

“Do you blame Revan?” Bao-Dur asked. It was safer than wondering, _do you blame me for building it, for bringing it to you, for having you bring it to_ her. Because that was the refrain his mind had been running down over the past night. The General had asked if Bao-Dur blamed him for giving the order. But the General had been the one to bring Bao-Dur’s schematics to Revan - and he could not have given the order to detonate the device if Bao-Dur had never built it. So while the General wondered if Bao-Dur blamed him for the order, Bao-Dur wondered why the General didn’t blame him for putting the Jedi in that position.

He’d come to the conclusion that the fault lay equally on both of them. That the General had been right - taking it all on himself was folly. And following that logic, and knowing the General’s tendency to accept responsibility for everything around him with a draw of his lightsaber, allowing him to blame himself for it would end in just as much disaster. More, really - so many lives rested on what the General was doing for the Republic. In contrast, very little depended on Bao-Dur.

“She had the plan, I just initiated it. And yet the Council blamed me, when I returned,” the General said.

Bao-Dur remembered the palpable shame the man had displayed when T3 played the video of the General’s trial. “You were the one they could get ahold of. They blamed you because they could not blame the others.”

“So Kreia says. She told me to search my feelings, to examine all I recall of those moments and accept it. If I do not face it, I cannot move past it. And so I did. And every time I used the Force to think about it, my mind kept being drawn to you.”

Bao-Dur thought about the nightmares from the last two nights, and felt his flesh involuntarily prickle as though he’d stepped into the Telos polar regions again. “And what did you find?”

“That you were right.” The General heaved a sigh. “I was telling you the same things I told the Jedi Council. That we went to war to save lives. That we did what we had to in order to prevent a broader catastrophe. That Malachor was a horrible tragedy, and that if we had not done it things would have been worse. I told the Council those things because at the time, I believed I was right.”

Bao-Dur held silent, waiting. The air told him to be quiet and listen. The General had listened to his words the other night. He needed to return the favor now.

“Over the years, I began to wonder if I was actually right. Or if I had been telling myself those things so that I could _convince_ myself I was right. Those are different.  When you accused me of doing that, I was offended. I shouldn’t have been, because you were right.” 

The General looked over at him, his brown eyes shadowed. “I want you to forgive me.”

Now it was Bao-Dur’s turn to draw in a startled breath. Of all the things he’d thought would happen in the conversation to come, the General asking him for forgiveness was the one he’d least expected.

“I was angry at you for thinking you could come in here and tell me that I did not bear guilt, and assuming that your words alone would relieve me of my burden,” he said after a moment. “It seemed very presumptive of you. And also very Jedi.”

The General laughed at that.

“You were just trying to help me, and I threw it back in your face. So if you’ll forgive me, then I can forgive you,” the Zabrak concluded.

The General smiled at the sincere words. “You’ve always been willing to follow me anywhere. To forgive me when you would have all the right to remain furious with me. I don’t deserve your loyalty.”

He stood up, as though he was going to leave now that his piece had been said.

 

“But you have it. For life,” Bao-Dur vowed. He meant to reassure with his words, but again a feeling in the air sent prickles down his spine, changing the moment to something of great foreboding.

“That’s a dangerous thing to say,” the General warned, apparently sensing the same thing.

Before he knew it, he was rolling from a seated position to his knees. He hesitated there a moment, looking up at the General, willing the other man to sense the truth via the Force. “I followed you once, General, and I obey your command still. Because you are worthy of it. This is something you must know,” he insisted.

The unspoken communication must have worked, because he felt something almost immediately. It felt like a warmth like the high noon sun against his skin, the smell of the spiced drink his clan serves at winter solstice, a hand caressing his back, the sense of peace when the first light from dawn makes itself known on the horizon...

How could he not know what he was, the way he was the sun they all orbited around? Everyone on the Ebon Hawk - Atris - the Jedi Masters he was searching for - they all were being drawn into the General’s path, swept along in his wake. Most were brought along by the Force, the subtle currents putting them in the right place at the right time to be caught up in his quest. 

But Bao-Dur was _choosing_ to go along. 

Suddenly, it seemed vitally important to him that the General know that. That someone was following him not because of the shape he had had on events in the past, not that he was going to have on events to come,  but because of who he _was_.

The General was frozen where he stood. His eyes half-closed, his mouth moved but no words came out, as though he was struggling to comprehend something. Or many somethings. Bao-Dur felt a sudden ripple of awareness and a wash of alien emotion - surprise, doubt, tangled with a strong sense of unworthy, and buried under that was need. It was a potent enough mix of feelings that had he not been on his knees already, he would have been driven there by it.

“Bao-Dur,” the General breathed out, his voice a mix of astonishment and awe.

The Zabrak finished pushing himself to his feet and stepped closer. One stride, and now he was within a foot of the General; closer into the other man’s personal space than he would normally be, even when they worked together at the workbench. Normally he tried not to think much of any casual proximity between them. But now he was hyper aware of how close they are. How he wanted them to be closer still. And if what he sensed from the other man was correct… if it wasn’t entirely one-sided...

He raised his organic arm, aiming to telegraphed his intent with body language and intentions. If the other man wanted to step away from him and what he was offering, now was the moment.

The General did not step away. He stepped closer instead, meeting the Zabrak halfway. Bao-Dur’s arm wrapped around the human, pulling him closer as he bent his head to press their lips together, as he’d been longing to do since he saw the General again.

The kiss was not the delicate romantic type from storybook romances, or the scorching lust-filled ones from the holovids Atton cheerfully admitted to having and the holonovels that Mical would deny having. It was a fumbling, awkward moment of slightly missing the other person’s face and having to carefully work on aligning their heads so their lips could meet without Bao-Dur’s horns stabbing the General. 

But once they figured out the angle, they both put great enthusiasm to it. Bao-Dur’s instinct was to run his hand along the other man’s back, and he noted that the General was trembling against him. The General put his arm around the Zabrak’s back, holding close against him, as though he feared Bao-Dur would disappear from his touch if he let go.

When they broke apart, both were flushed and panting. 

“So you can read me,” Bao-Dur said after a moment.

“I thought I said that,” the General said.

“You said you were called here to speak to me. Then you said Kreia couldn’t read me. I wondered if the Force told you something needed to happen here. Or if you knew I needed you.”

“Ah.” The General hesitated, brushing his fingers across Bao-Dur’s organic hand. “I can read you. I’ve been able to since I saw you on Telos. Even as my connection to the Force was still restoring itself, before I could read anyone else on this ship, I could read you.”

Bao-Dur smiled.”Good.” 

Maybe he should have felt unsettled that the General could see into him. Instead he felt suffused with warmth. He trusted the General with his loyalty and life - wherever he would go, Bao-Dur would follow; whatever he commanded, Bao-Dur would carry out - of course he trusted him with his mind and heart.


End file.
